The Battle of Kruty that took place on January 29, 1918, involuntarily became an element of the actual Ukrainian politics. The current head of state began his presidential campaign with the forum “From Kruty to Brussels”, while the billboards of Volodymyr Zelensky cynically announced “President. By any measure” [Ukr. “Як не крути” – pun with the word ‘Kruty’ in Ukrainian – edit.] (although it would be logical to assume that being a far cry away from knowing Ukrainian history and culture, the comedian simply did not notice this unpleasant coincidence).
The film Kruty 1918 directed by Oleksii Shapariev was released last week. It will surely bring about a new wave of interest in the Battle of Kruty. I am not going to judge the artistic characteristics of this film since Dmytro Desyateryk has already done it profoundly on DUMKA.
I would only say that Kruty 1918 is neither a masterpiece nor a landmark in the history of Ukrainian filmmaking. But in some incomprehensible way, this film makes you empathize and excites you. It creates an emotional contact, gets the heart rate up, takes your breath away, and brings tears to your eyes. Isn’t it a compliment to it then?
The weakest points of the film are false intonations and excessive (theatrical) gestures of сertain actors. It is easy to explain why some of the intonations sound unnatural though: I accidentally heard an interview with one of the main actors of this film on the radio, and it turned out that this is a Russian-speaking person in everyday life. When we speak English or Polish, native speakers clearly hear our accent and unnaturalness of pronunciation of certain sounds – this fact is plain as day to everyone. So why did not the director think that it is the same with Ukrainian – it should be a native language if you want it to sound natural!
This movie has also raised a certain issue of an ethical nature, not reproach or criticism, but a simple question or a doubt. I mean Yevhen Nyschuk’s part in the film. He is a good actor and a successful minister, but I believe that his active acting career (part in The Cyborgs, The Secret Diary of Symon Petliura, and now Kruty 1918) does not suit for the government representative who co-financed the production of these films. It is evident that the minister has the right to engage in whatever he wants in his spare time. But why give grounds for gossip and accusations of using the official position once again? It would be more ethical to stand aside from participation in the projects financed by the state budget.
Now a few words about the socio-political context of the movie. No doubt that the popularization of the Battle of Kruty will make this event one of the most important in the history of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in the mass consciousness. Therefore, it would be essential to focus properly on the priorities, because thanks to the Bolshevik propaganda many people still consider January 29, 1918, a tragic day and another painful defeat in Ukrainian history.
So why did the President name his forum “From Kruty to Brussels” then? Did he decide to start his election campaign with a mention of the defeat? Quite the contrary: despite the death of the Ukrainian students, the Battle of Kruty was a victorious and triumphant event. The detachment fulfilled a military task: they detained the gang of the Red Army and, therefore, won. The UPR managed to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk due to it providing itself with international recognition and support in such a way. I understand that Ukrainians love tragedy and seeing themselves as victims, but in the context of Kruty, we are the winners.
And finally, the most important thing. A patriotic movie about Ukrainian history can be effective only when millions watch it. Kruty 1918 should be shown to schoolchildren, students and young people in general. If the state allocated 26 million hryvnias for the production of this movie, then we should make sure that this film is seen by as many people as possible.
It is high time to develop a program of cinema shows for schoolchildren and students which will be funded by the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education and local governments, so that the cinemas could get used to making good money on screening Ukrainian films, and millions of young people could have an opportunity to see the brand-new Ukrainian movies. Do you support it?
Andriy Lyubka